To familiarize their engineers on the engine for Qatar Airways’ fleet, Rolls-Royce and Qatar Airways partnered to develop virtual reality (VR) training for engineers to teach them the ins and outs of the Trent XWB – the engine for the A350 fleet.
“Virtual reality has a valuable application here,” said Steve Buckland, customer and product training manager at Rolls-Royce and developer of the training program. “It’s going to save time, money, and frees up engines that could otherwise be on aircraft, keeping passengers moving.”
The training uses an HTC Vive to bring engineers into a virtual environment so that they can take the engine apart and learn how to perform repairs before a real-life engine is shipped to their repair centers. Before this training experience was implemented, engines would either be physically sent to Doha for training, or the airline would provide an engine in service for training to take place. Rolls-Royce said that this process risks damage to equipment and/or the loss of valuable flying time.
“Nothing will beat learning with an engine and this will never be replaced,” Buckland said, “But new technology is allowing us to be innovative with the ways we teach engineers.”
VR training has the potential to save an immense amount of time and make people more effective by getting virtual hands-on experience that translates to greater understanding of concepts in their respective fields – some cases in point being the U.S. military’s HoloLens 2 integration and Philippine Airlines gamified VR training.
